Colonial Pipeline reported Sunday afternoon, that it is working to restore service and that several smaller lateral lines between terminals and distribution points are now operational. Due to a ransomware attack on Friday, the group, which operates the country’s largest fuel pipeline, briefly halted all operations. Its four mainlines are still down. Colonial said it’s working on a restart strategy, but there’s no timeline on when full service will be restored.
Colonial said in a statement that it is working to restore connectivity to other laterals and that it will put the entire infrastructure back online, only when it is safe to do so and in strict compliance with all federal regulations. The U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Sunday morning that the federal government is trying to stop production shortages after the corporation halted operations.
During an interview on CBS’ “Face the Country,” Raimondo said, “This is what companies actually have to think about.” “Unfortunately, attacks like this are becoming more common. They’ll be here for a long time.” The F.B.I. said it is working closely with Colonial Pipeline and government partners to counter the ransomware threat, and President Joe Biden has been briefed on the situation.
According to Colonial, the federal government’s response is being led by the Department of Energy. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Management Agency of the Department of Homeland Security is working with the organisation to ensure its security. Colonial said it was “the victim of a cybersecurity attack” on Friday and has since shut down 5,500 miles of pipeline that transport almost half of the fuel supply on the East Coast, creating concerns of oil, diesel, and jet fuel shortages on the East Coast.
According to Colonial, the pipeline is the country’s first refined goods pipeline. “Right now, it’s an all-hands-on-deck effort,” Raimondo said. “We’re working closely with the business, state, and local authorities to ensure that regular activities resume as soon as possible and that production is not disrupted.”
According to the company’s website, it connects Gulf Coast refineries to more than 50 million people in the southern and eastern United States. According to Bernadette Johnson, senior vice president of power and renewables at Enverus, the long-term effect of the assault on fuel prices is unknown since Colonial has yet to begin operations. Given the short-term outage, Johnson expected an increase in refined oil costs. “In both the USGC and the Northeast, refined commodity storage will minimise the effect of a short-term event,” Johnson said on Saturday.
However, according to John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital in New York, if the closure continues, the nation might face severe fuel shortages. If the company’s activities don’t restart by Sunday evening, Kilduff predicts that petrol rates will spike at the start of futures trading. “If this outage were to last for an extended period of time, there will be supply shortages in the Northeast and a surplus of product in the USGC, affecting prices around the country,” Johnson acknowledged. A brief outage, according to Jay Hatfield, founder and CEO of Infrastructure Capital Management in New York, would likely push already-increasing national retail gas rates beyond $3 per gallon for the first time since 2014. On Friday, gas futures rose 0.6 percent to $2.1269 a gallon, while diesel futures rose 1.1 percent to $2.0106 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
